THE GARDINEL

Manny Wellman was sitting in the brightly lit kitchen of his son and daughter-in-law's house at number 109 Dorset Lane in LePage, in the Victorian countryside. Like usual, he was grousing about life in Australia.
"I don't see why we had to come ten thousand miles from the States. We were happy in the U.S.A.?"
"In Australia we say sixteen thousand kilometres ... Besides, you weren't happy in the States," corrected his Melbourne-born daughter-in-law, Tegan. "You were forever complaining about all the gun massacres, school knifings, drive-by killings ..."
"Not to mention a certain madman who will be in the White House on January 21st next year," pointed out his son, Keifer. Like his father, Keifer had been born in a suburban area of New Jersey. Like his father, Keifer was a tall, lean man. But unlike his father, Keifer still had a head of full, lush raven-coloured hair, whereas Manny's long, snowy locks made him look like an emaciated Santa Claus. Imitating Manny's whining grousing voice, Keifer said, "How could people choose an evil, insane man over a good, decent woman?"
"Well, I admire your support of women's rights," chipped in Tegan, a mousy blonde barely one hundred and sixty centimetres tall, "but I wanted to return to my homeland."
"And we agreed Australia was a safer place to have kids," added Keifer.
"Well, that's true," admitted the old man reluctantly, "but why do we have to live in the smelly countryside?"
"The air around here smells sweetly of pine and eucalyptus," pointed out Keifer. "That's another reason to live here."
"Yes, you were always grousing about the polluted smell of Jersey and New York."
"I never grouse," groused Manny. "And they weren't that bad."
"Dad, you groused about the petrol slash gasoline smell from when I was born, to when we moved here shortly after my thirty-ninth birthday last year." When the old man said nothing, Keifer added, "Besides, you were always talking of selling up and moving to a 'Nice log cabin, like Abe Lincoln grew up in' in the countryside!"
"The Jersey countryside!"
"Dad, there are more drive-by shootings in American country towns than there are in Australian capital cities!"
"Maybe," groused Manny, "anyway I'm going for a walk."
Picking up his cane, which said along the side, 'Made in America', despite being made in Korea, the old man turned and started outside.
"Would you like us to go with you?"
"No!" said Manny and Tegan as one.
Outside, the sixty-two-year-old kept grousing as he started across the pine needle and gum leaf-covered floor of the sweet-smelling forest.
Think I'm an old man who needs taking care of! I'm only sixty-two! he thought, grousing in his mind as he started.
The walk through the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest. Sniffing in the fragrant area he realised it was nice walking in the forest just beyond LePage township. Although he would rather die a gruesome death than admit that to Keifer or Tegan.

Inside the two-storey villa home, Tegan asked: "Wouldn't it be kinder to put the old fool into a loony bin?"
A little shocked, Keifer said: "He's not loony ... Just a little eccentric."
"Eccentric as a coot," said Tegan, not sure what a coot was.
"Besides, due to Ken Kesey's rambling mess-terpiece, there are very few loony bins left. That's why there are so many drive-by shootings, and stabbings in America ... They let the crazies out of the asylums and closed them all down."

"Ah smell that sweet aroma," said Manny, looking back as though afraid that his son or daughter-in-law had followed him and would hear him. "They're right, this is better than polluted Jersey air and drive-by shootings."
Enjoying the fresh air twenty days short of Christmas, Manny lost track of time and his location as he walked deeper and deeper into the eucalyptus and pine forest. Not that he was worried, he's been a Boy Scout, then a Boy Scout leader, and knew how to track through the forest. Looking back, he thought, "Not that it's hard following tracks across the pine needles and gum leaves ... they make it mighty easy."
He had almost decided it was time to turn and head home for lunch, when he reached a clear and stared in shock.
"What the Hell!" he said, staring at the small log cabin that stood in the clearing. "We were just talking about Honest Abe's log cabin, and lo and behold, I find one in the local forest."
Even as he started toward the grey-wood cabin, Manny wondered whether they had ever had American-style log cabins in Australia.
Nonetheless, thrilled to find what looked like a one- or two-room cabin in the bush outside LePage, Manny started forward, a little surprised by the strong flower-like smell as he approached the cabin.
Guess the occupants love flora, he thought as he approached the cabin.
On the patio, that ran from one side of the cabin to the other, there was a wooden rocking chair, rocking gently as though someone had just been sitting there. Beside it sat an old wooden barrel upended so that what looked like a corn whisky jug could sit on it.
Didn't know Aussies ever made white lightning? thought Manny as he approached until he was up to, but not yet upon the patio. From this distance, the plant smell was almost overpowering.
Still, it's better than the gasoline stench of Jersey, though Manny, before calling out, "Hello, anybody about?"

In the Yellow House on Rochester Road, Merridale, they were seated around the lunch table, awaiting Sheila Bennett's arrival.
"Where the Hell is she?" demanded Tommy Turner, a short blond retiree. "Doesn't she know there are starving people here?"
"Tom-Tom you could live for weeks on that gut," teased Freddy Kingston, a tall, portly recent retiree, almost but not quite bald.
"How dare you ... and don't call me Tom-Tom!"
"It's not like Sheila to be late for meals," said Leo Laxman. Tall, thin, and born in Jamaica, Leo had moved to Australia a year ago to work as a nurse at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.
"Yes, she certainly has a healthy appetite," put in Natasha Lipzing. At seventy-one, the tall grey-haired lady was the oldest resident at the boarding house.
"For a pregnant Hippo, maybe," teased Terri Scott. A beautiful blonde, at thirty-six, Terri was the top cop of the BeauLarkin to Willamby area, and was the boss of Colin and Sheila.
"Terri!" cried Deidre Morton, shocked. The owner of the Yellow House, Deidre, was a sixty-something brunette who should have at least a dozen Michelin Stars for her culinary skills. "Sheila spends all day every Saturday at the Muscle-Up Gym with Derek and Cheryl exercising ... That's why she has to eat so much.
"So it's not just that she's a glutton?" teased Colin Klein. A tall redheaded man, Colin had worked as a London crime reporter for thirty years before moving to Australia to join the Glen Hartwell Police Force and become engaged to Terri.
"Well, I am surprised at you, Mr. Klein!" said Deidre pointedly. His face flushed red in anger at her favourite 'guest' being slandered, and she started to give Colin a major tongue-lashing.
When they heard the sound of a key turning in the front door.
"That must be her now," said Natasha. "Where has she been?"
"Don't ask us," said Terri, "she just said she had to buy something at the Rosy-Lea Florist shop at the corner of Baltimore and Matthew Flinders Road."
"Rosey-Lea, that's rhyming slang for cup of tea," said Natasha.
"Not in their case," said Colin, as they heard footsteps approaching from the corridor. "The florist shop is owned by two sisters, Rosey and Lea McCullam."
"Howdy Doody boys and girls," said Sheila, beaming broadly as she entered the kitchen carrying a tall white plastic bag. The same age as Terri, Sheila was a Goth chick with orange-and-black striped hair, and the second-top cop in the area. "Guess where I've been?"
"The Rosey-Lea Florist Shop," said Natasha Lipzing.
Looking puzzled, Sheila asked, "How did you know?"
"Terri told us," said Deidre. "Besides, that's what it says on the plastic bag you're carrying. "What did you see that took your interest?"
"Took my interest, nah ah, I had to get this specially ordered in."
Reaching carefully into the plastic bag, she lifted out a plastic flower pot, holding a large flower, with what looked like giant green halved clam shells for leaves, with long green 'tines' on the outer edges of the 'shells'.
"What the Hell is that?" asked Tommy, puzzled enough to forget about being hungry.
"A Venus Flytrap," said Sheila, grinning like a child on Santa's lap.
"Isn't that one of those carnivorous plants?" asked Natasha.
"Yep, it'll take care of all the flies and insects in the house, as well as scarfing down the occasional mouse."
"There are no mice in my house!" said Deidre emphatically.
"But we did have a problem with flies and wasps last summer," said Tommy, almost as whacky as Sheila, in invariably sided with the Goth chick.
"Get it out of my house!" Insisted Deidre. "I don't want to lose a finger to that thing!"
"You won't lose a finger to it; I'll keep it in my room." She thought for a moment, then said, "Probably on that little table near my bedroom window. It needs to have lots of indirect sunlight. And I'll need to buy a water distiller ... it can't handle tap water."
"Who can, with all that fluorine, bromine, and canine they put in it?" demanded Tommy.
"You know water distillers can cost a thousand bucks?" said Freddy.
"Venice is worth it."
"Venice?" asked Colin Klein.
"That's what I decided to call her; Venice the Venus Flytrap."
"And we thought she was insane," said Terri, making everyone, except Sheila, laugh.

Calling out again, Manny Wellman stepped tentatively up onto the patio of the log cabin. Although it looked rickety, the patio was solid underfoot, if a little soft, strangely so for what looked like aged wood.
"Anyone at home??" called the old man, tentatively pushing inwards the door to step into the cabin.
Inside the illusion of a log cabin continued at first. There was a wooden bunk with strangely plastic-looking blankets, two wooden chairs, a coffee table bereft of coffee table books, and a large wooden fireplace, bereft of a fire, although the day was slightly chilly.
"Brrrr," said Manny, a victim of chilly days. "Pity they didn't light the fire."
He walked across to the fireplace where three or four small logs were waiting to be burnt.
"Would it be presumptuous of me to light the fire without having been invited in? thought Manny. However, as the cabin became almost Antarctically cold, he stretched down to pick up a single small log.
"What ...?" cried Manny, dropping the log in shock. Instead of being dry and hard, it was soft and pulpy like an over-ripe capsicum.
What the bloody Hell ...? thought Manny, deciding it was time to depart the mysterious cabin.
He turned to leave, only to find the room and furniture starting to dissolve around him, melting into a mess of colours like a twisted rainbow in a psychedelic movie from the 1960s.
What the shit? wondered Manny as he started to feel faint, seconds before a large mass of gooey cold gel fell onto him from the ceiling of the room, which no longer looked like a room in a log cabin. The grey wood walls had been replaced by green curved walls, looking more like the sepals or pitcher of a gigantic plant.
"What is ...?" cried Manny, shrieking as the sickly fungal goo started to burn into his pate and face like strong acid. "God, please help me!" he cried, crossing himself, wondering whether he had somehow been fast-tracked straight into a fiery Hell.
"God, Help ..." he began, stopping as a dollop of the sickly, acid goop fell straight into his open mouth.
He gasped, gagged, and tried to spit the goop out. However, it had already started to burn away the inside of his mouth, oesophagus, and throat.
Help me! he cried inside his mind, starting to wonder if he had lost his mind as the acidic pussy goop burnt him inside and out.
Fortunately, Manny died of asphyxiation from his blocked windpipe, before the plant acid ate away his face, leaving him with a ghoulish skeletal grin as though finding his own death hilariously funny.
For ten minutes or so, the strong acid continued to melt away Manny's flesh, organs, and entrails, until only a shining skeletal remains; stripped of all flesh and wiped clean of even the blood and mucus.
Then, pursing like a gigantic mouth, the once-was cabin spat the skeletal remains of poor Manny Wellman out into the air. They would have travelled a couple of hundred metres into the forest ... if they hadn't collided with a thick bough ten metres or so up a large blue gum tree. Some of the skeleton adhered to the bough, others hung down from the bough, in long strands of acidic goo, and the remainder crashed onto the thick layer of pine needles and gum leaves that carpeted the forest floor.
For a moment, the outside of the 'cabin' looked like the grinning face of a lunatic, then slowly it began to reform, returning to its former guise of a quaint log cabin.

After lunch, Terri, Sheila, Colin, and Suzette Cummins (a short, lithe eighteen-year-old trainee policewoman) were driving down Mitchell Street, Glen Hartwell, with Sheila at the wheel of Terri's police-blue Lexus.
"Guess what?' said Terri, holding up her left hand to show a sparkly engagement ring.
"Cheapo finally lashed out on an engagement ring?" asked Sheila.
Glaring at her, Colin said, "No, we've decided to get married next year."
"We're thinking of October the third."
"Your birthday?" asked Suzette.
"Yes," said Colin. "That gives us almost a year to plan things out."
"No!" cried Sheila. "You can't get married on your birthday, Tare, you'll only get one set of presents from Cheapo."
"I am not a Cheapo!"
"Yeah," agreed Suzette, "that's almost as bad as being born on Christmas Day ... Unless you're Jesus, of course."

At number 109 Dorset Lane in LePage, Tegan and Keifer were starting to get worried about the non-return of Manny.
"It's after 1:00 PM," said Tegan angrily, angry at herself for allowing the old man to wander through the unfamiliar Victorian countryside. Feeling guilty that she had been so happy to get a few hours' peace from the old man's constant grousing about life in Australia. "Should we go out and search for him?"
"No, we don't know the local area any better than he does," said Keifer. Taking out his mobile, he rang through to the Mitchell Street Police Station, where he was redirected to Terri Scott's phone number.

"A quiet day, so far," said Terri, stopping as her mobile screamed.
"Why do you always say that, Chief?" demanded Suzette.
"Yeah, trouble rings as soon as you say it," agreed Sheila.
Ignoring Sheila and Suzette, Terri listened on the phone for a few minutes. Then, disconnecting, she said, "That was Keifer Wellman over in LePage. His old father went out walking not long after breakfast and hasn't returned yet."
"They let an old man go out by himself?" asked Colin.
"He is only sixty-two," said Sheila. She turned the car toward Dorset Lane in LePage.
"How does she always know that?" demanded Suzette. "There are over twelve thousand people from BeauLarkin to Willamby."
"I know my job," said Sheila with a smirk.
Ignoring them, Terri rang through to Don Esk, a tall brown-haired sergeant under her command. Disconnecting, she said, "Don's bringing Lisa with his dogs, Slap, Tickle, and Rub, to help locate Manny."
"Should we get Bulam-Bulam?" asked Colin, referring to an Aboriginal Elder and friend of theirs who worked pro rata as a police tracker for them.
"No, let's give the mutts a try first," said Terri.

At number 109 Dorset Lane in LePage, Tegan and Keifer Wellman were waiting outside when Terri's Lexus arrived. Don and Lisa had already arrived with the Alsatian-crosses, which were sniffing one of Manny's bed socks. One of the dogs sneezed, then all three of them started sniffing around, before almost pulling Lisa, a lithe twenty-eight-year-old blonde, Don's fiancé, and Don off their feet.
"How did they get here first?" Colin wondered aloud, as, abandoning the Lexus, they all set off at a run after Lisa, Don, and the three dogs.
"Slow down you crazy mutts!" called Lisa in terror, almost losing her footing, however, yelping in excitement Slap, Tickle, and Rub raced at breakneck speed into the sweet-smell pine and eucalyptus forest, making pin point turns, that sometimes left Lisa or Don sore and bruised as the dogs managed to avoid the trees, but their handlers did not.
Finally, to her relief, Rub managed to pull his leash out of the blonde's grasp and led the charge toward the remains of Manny Wellman, as Lisa fell facedown onto the carpet of pine needles and gum leaves.
As Slap pulled his leash from Don's grasp, the tall, strong policeman fell facedown onto the forest floor, allowing Tickle to escape also.
"Come back, you mangy mutts!" cried Don as the procession thundered after the three excited dogs, wondering if they would ever catch them.
Then, as Don and the others appeared, the dogs' yelping became panicked, and they spun on their heels, almost knocking over the procession as they took off again the way they had come.
"Worthless mutts," Don called after them, almost stepping on some of Manny Wellman's remains as they entered the clearing.
"What the Hell are ...?" began Don. He reached down to pick up some of the bones, being stopped by Terri.
"Hold on," she called, "put your protective gloves on first."
Looking like she might throw up, Lisa said, "These can't be the remains of Manny Wellman, can they?"
She yelped in terror and fell onto her backside as she jumped away, when a long strand of goo-coated bones fell down from the bough of the tree.
Looking up, they all saw the hanging bones, and the half of the skeleton stuck to the bough.
"What the Hell is this stuff?" asked Sheila, careful to put on blue latex gloves before picking up some of the goo to take a careful sniff.
"Well?" asked Colin.
"Acidic," said Sheila.
"I think it's time to get Jesus and his crew out here," said Terri. Taking out her mobile, the blonde rang through to the Glen Hartwell Hospital.

It was nearly an hour later before an ambulance and two Range Rovers arrived with the medical staff.
Terri and co. showed them the acidic goo hanging from the tree bough, then left them alone to do their stuff.
Two hours later, the skeletal remains had been transported to the morgue in the basement of the Glen Hartwell Hospital, and they stood around watching as Jesus and co. did their best to examine them.
"It's acidic all right," said Jesus Costello (pronounce Hee-Zeus), a tall fifty-something man, administrator and chief surgeon at the hospital.
"But strange acid," said Tilly Lombstrom. A tall, attractive, fifty-something brunette, Tilly was Jesus's second in command.
"Strange in what way?" asked Terri.
"It seems to be combined with some kind of sap ... possibly tree sap," said Elvis Green, the local coroner.
"So he was melted by tree sap?" asked Colin.
"Looks like it," agreed Jesus. "We've managed to get a DNA sample to test ..." He left the rest of the sentence hanging.
"So now it's my job to break the possible news to Keifer and Tegan," said Terri.
"And get a DNA sample from Keifer," said Tilly. "I'd better come with you for that."

It was nearly midnight, and the dirty old hobo, not quite forty, but looking more like sixty, staggered through the freezing night forest looking for a place to spend the night.
There must be a barn or something that I can sleep in, he thought, knowing it was a rural area. However, the nearest farm was twenty kilometres away, and Lance, as he liked to call himself, was tired, starving, and freezing.
You'd think there'd be at least a few fruit trees out here somewhere, he thought. However, there was nothing edible on the pine, eucalyptus, or occasional wattle trees that proliferated throughout the forest outside LePage.
Is this the end of poor Lance Longfellow? he wondered, using the poetic alias which he had adopted almost a decade ago, after being thrown out by his wife of eight years.
His legs ached and felt like they were made of concrete; he was almost ready to give in and collapse to the forest floor. Although he thought he would possibly freeze to death outside by morning, he was too sore to care.
Then minutes before he wouldn't be able to go any further, he saw the small log cabin. The empty rocking chair still rocked gently on the porch. Beside it sat the wooden barrel upended with what looked like a corn whisky jug sitting on it. But more importantly, the front door was still.
Salvation! thought Lance trying to run across to the cabin, but finding that he could only stagger, struggling even then to stay on his feet.
Don't fail me now, legs! He thought, mindful of the brutal irony when he was this close to sleeping indoors, if he was unable to make it.
Despite his legs wanting to surrender to death, the hobo forced himself forward centimetre after centimetre, until, after what seemed like hours, he fell onto the porch outside the cabin.
What? he thought, surprised by the softness of the porch, which did not feel like wood. After a moment's rest, he managed to crawl across to the upended barrel in the hope that the whisky jug was not empty.
Come on, you bastard! He thought, trying to pull the jug away from the barrel. However, the jug seemed to be fixed to the barrel by some means Lance could not see. Also, it felt soft and rubbery to the touch, as did the porch that he was still half lying upon.
What the ...? he thought, pulling his hand away from the jug in disgust.
Sighing from frustration at getting no whisky, he struggled to turn, then slowly crawled along the rubbery porch until he had reached the partly open door to the cabin.
Just don't blow closed now, he thought. That would be the finish of him. But as he crawled toward it, the door seemed to slide open a little wider, as though welcoming the hobo inside, into its warmth.
Thank God! thought Lance, almost crying from relief as he pulled himself in through the doorway, not even noticing when the door slammed closed behind him, keeping the wintry cold outside. Not that it was much warmer inside. However, at least there was no cold wind blowing onto him, sapping away his life-giving body heat.
He lay on the floor for a few minutes before managing to pull himself to his feet to start across to the fireplace, in the hope of setting a couple of the small logs on fire. However, when he picked up one of the logs, it was clammy and rubbery.
Artificial logs, yet! He thought, collapsing to the rubbery floor again.
As though deciding it was time to put the tramp out of his misery, the log cabin began to dissolve into a kaleidoscope of flashing, spewing colours as the acidic sap of the Gardinel began to poor down onto the hobo, drowning him in its fiery death, until he was stripped down to the bones, as Manny Wellman had been earlier that day.
Then, pursing like a gigantic mouth, again the cabin spat the bones out into the forest. This time managing to miss the bough of the eucalyptus tree, a hundred metres or so away.

At the Yellow House, they had just finished breakfast the next day, when Terri Scott's mobile phone.
"It's a miracle!" teased Sheila.
"What?" asked Suzette Cummings who had arrived early and been invited to join in Deidre Morton's culinary masterpieces.
"For once, they didn't ring until after we finished eating."
As Suzette looked puzzled, Colin said, "She's right. Usually we've just sat down to eat when someone calls."
Disconnecting, Terri said, "That was Jesus at the hospital. It seems Manny Wellman's skeleton is incomplete. He wants us to return to the death scene to look for half a dozen missing ribs."
"Well, that's not too bad," said Suzette, as they headed outside.

Forty minutes later, they arrived back at the clearing, to find not half a dozen rib bones, but a complete human skeleton lying on the forest floor.
"Am I mad?" asked Sheila. "Or did we pick up all these bones yesterday?"
"Yes, to both questions," teased Colin.
"You do realise I outrank you?" Sheila teased back.
"Well, in that case, yes, to both questions, marm."
"That's better."
"Something tells me this is a second skeleton," said Terri, just as the thought occurred to Colin and the others.
Looking at the thick, acid goo soaking the bones again, Sheila said: "Don't tell me the Acid Man is back?" [See my story, 'The Acid Man'.]

"No," answered Tilly Lombstrom two hours later, when the second skeleton had been transferred to the morgue in the basement of the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital. "Firstly, we killed the Acid Man. Secondly, this is a plant-based acid. The Acid Man used a type of Hydrofluoric Acid, which could dissolve glass. This stuff certainly can't."
"We know, we've tried," said Jesus Costello.
"No, this is more like something you might get in a pitcher plant, but much stronger."
"A picture of a plant?" asked Sheila, confused.
"No, you Goth idjit," said Tilly, "a pitcher plant. It's a carnivorous plant that dissolves spiders and insects in acid to eat them."
"Like Venice," said Sheila, at last understanding.
Looking at Terri, Tilly asked, "Does she deliberately say things like that just to confuse us all?"
"Quite possibly," said Colin Klein, "but she's talking about her pet Venus Flytrap she's just bought, which she named Venice."
"Venice, the Venus Flytrap," explained Sheila.
"Now comes the tricky part," said Tilly. "We've taken DNA from skeleton B, as we're currently calling it ...."
"But we don't have a clue in Hell, who to test it against," Jesus Costello finished for his second in command.
"Don't you have some kind of internet DNA database?" asked Suzette.
"Yes, but despite what the X-Files wants you to believe, it doesn't contain the DNA of everyone born in Australia since 1788."
"Well, that's a letdown," said Sheila.

Having finished their final exams, in lieu of staying at school, some teachers from Glen Hartwell High School were taking nearly fifty form five and form six students out into the forest for a day of living off the land.
I'll give them living off the land, thought Suzie Carmichael, a tall, shapely seventeen-year-old. Checking that none of the teachers were watching, she opened the bag of Mars Bar segments she had in her school bag, and sneaked two segments at once into her mouth. Now, this is living off the land!
"Suzie, keep up," said her maths teacher, Len Lonsdale, seeing her falling behind.
Unable to answer with a mouth full of chocolate and nougat, Suzie nodded, then ran to catch up with, then pass Mr. Lonsdale, so he wouldn't see her chewing the Mars Bar segments.




THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia